I really don’t understand what I’m paying the premium price for with my Google Pixel. The constant ads, especially in apps like YouTube, are incredibly frustrating. I expected a smooth, ad-free experience, but instead, I’m bombarded with ads at every turn. The same or even better hardware is available at a much lower price, without these interruptions. So, what exactly am I paying extra for? Better performance? It doesn’t seem like it when my phone experience is constantly disrupted by ads.
You're paying for good hardware without all the vendor bloatware that the rest of us get. My pixel 5 died the other day and I replaced it with a Redmi note 13, and I miss the pixel. The Redmi, like other phones I've experienced, took a few days to stop sucking at performance, I guess that's how long the crapware took to settle down - my pixel was fast from the get-go.<p>Your primary mistake, though, is thinking that buying a phone from Google entitles you to premiums services on that phone. This is an invalid supposition.<p>If you want no YouTube ads, buy premium (and enjoy YT music as part of it). Or use a client like newpipe.
Pixels don't give you ad-free access to other Google services. Not sure where that belief came from.<p>It DOES give you:<p>- A phone without crapware and bloat from other manufacturers<p>- Pretty darned good voice and text spam blocking (the robot answers for you and screens calls)<p>- Regular updates<p>- Decent cameras<p>- (On any Android) Adguard removes a lot of ads, though not in YouTube unless you "share" each video to its special player app.<p>If you don't care about those, don't get a Pixel. For me it's simply the lack of bloat and the spam blocking that keeps me on Pixel. I tried an iPhone for a month and the spam was so bad I had to switch back.
In my opinion, Pixel phones don't have system-wide ads. You should compare them to iOS or other Android systems. iOS also doesn't have system ads, but if you use Xiaomi or Huawei in China, you'll find plenty of ads in built-in apps like the browser or weather app. They might even add ads to apps that were originally ad-free, and that's what I'd call system ads.<p>As for YouTube, it's not a built-in part of the operating system. It's like using Spotify: if you want an ad-free experience, you need a premium subscription or a modified version.
>The same or even better hardware is available at a much lower price, without these interruptions.<p>What phone is better and cheaper without ads in apps?
I am no tech bro, I am just an old retired bloke who enjoys using tech exactly how I want it to be.<p>I HAVE NO ADS ON MY PHONE.<p>How is this, that an old non techy can manage this seemingly difficult task.<p>First, I change. the DNS settings on my Pixel 4A and my families and friends phones.<p>Mullvad provides this as a free service for anyone not using their VPN.<p>I use the family filter on our phones: There are others.<p>family.dns.mullvad.net<p><a href="https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls" rel="nofollow">https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls</a><p>secondly I install, either a Lineage or E/OS rom on our phones. Some of my family still use google apps so they prefer the E/OS roms which has microG.<p>easy peasy, no ads